All customizations and changes that has been done on folders types and folders views are saved and remembered by Windows OS in system registry. By default, Windows is configured to have cache memory storage space with size of 5000 folders to store the folder settings, a value for the ‘Bag’ that has also been increased in Windows XP SP2 compared to just 400 in Windows XP SP1 or earlier. The upper limit of 5000 has remained through Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.

Theoretically, amount of 5000 should be more than enough for most Windows users. Hardly anybody has so many nested folders of more than 5000. However, there is reported problems that Windows sometimes simply does not want to remember, save and store the changes to folder types and folder views after users customize them. Instead, the view and/or type of folders revert back to previous settings and configurations when the window is re-opened.

The ‘forgotten’ and lost folder views and types settings problem is likely to be caused by abnormal behavior of Windows on folders customization. Such illogical and weird folders behavior includes the the view or type set on a folder been reverted and changed back to last settings even after been customized by user. For example, the folder template that users setup such as specifying a folder to be a documents folder with details view, Windows will overwrite and override the setting, then switching the folder type to pictures with icons view. As the result, folder may display incorrect thumbnail, or no thumbnail at all. In addition, window size and position may not reopened exactly the last time it closed.

There is also occasional case where deleting Bag registry key entries to reset folders state fixes the problem on the computer. However, after a while, the problematic symptom starts happening again, and any changes on folder types and folder views again fail to be recorded and saved by Windows system. In this case, it’s possibly due to not enough space in memory space allocated in registry.

To avoid the cache memory for folder customization settings run out of space, users can increase the memory cache space allocated in the registry for the folder settings, which is assigned in registry as BagMRU Size.

Note

In fresh clean install of Windows Vista, the value for BagMRU Size is set at the wrong location for Windows Vista. The BagMRU Size of new Windows Vista installation is located at:

Above location is the exact same location where Windows XP stores BagMRU Size value data. However, Windows Vista looks for BagMRU Size at the following location, which by default actually does not have this registry key set, as explained in this forum thread (dead link):

It is not known what value Windows Vista is assuming or assigning to BagMRU Size when the actual value is not set in the registry. If you have problem where your personal preferences for folder types and views something just simply change without notice, this probably due the the BagMRU value which is not found in Windows Vista registry been set at a low number, at least comparatively lower than default 5000 folders which supposed to set in Windows Vista.

So it’s recommended to set the BagMRU value as per registry tweak below, even though you don’t have any problem with always changing back folder settings in Windows Vista.

Here’s the steps to increase the Folder Type and Folder View settings BagMRU Size cache memory for changes to Windows Explorer or File Explorer view and type settings, and ensure that Windows less likely to forget the settings.

However, any changes on either branch will automatically reflect and duplicate over to another registry branch. So only one change is required.

Microsoft has not provided any documentation for BagMRU Size, but there are indication that there is upper limit of 8000 for Windows XP, and 20,000 for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows 10.

Thanx I need this, b'coz every time I save My settings it changes back to default!!!

Franklin

Thank you so much for posting this tip! I absolutely hate it when vista forgets my folder settings.

John

Thanks for the tip! Works so far on 1 of the user accounts for the last couple days. Haven't had the time to check the others.

Don Juane

Thanks! As an additional step, I always save my tweaks in a folder with the description name in “.reg file format”; for example I have created a text file named “Win 7 Increase Folder Size Setting Memory.reg” Inside the text file is the following:

======================BEGIN OF TEXT FILE====== (Do not include this line in file) ===== Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00